No hard border, protection of the GFA, access to the single market must be maintained. Keep what works, fix what doesn’t. Then govt must get back to work. No more delay.
Welcome progress. A deal on the protocol must be done.
Tag: Conservative and Unionist Party
“Russian money has eaten quite deeply into the British elite.”
@C4Dispatches tells the story of Russia’s covert efforts to try and interfere in British politics.
Watch @C4Dispatches: Strippers, Spies and Russian Money tomorrow night at 10pm on @Channel4
One person in this photo voted for the Protocol and said it was an opportunity👇👇
Two others have been recorded praising the Protocol and openly stating it wasn’t a threat to the union
Now they’re raging because a Judge agreed with them
Welcome to unionism 👍
Boris Johnson agreed Brexit protocol knowing it was a ‘mess’, says John Major.
Tuesday 7th February, 2023.
John Major has launched a scathing attack on Boris Johnson’s handling of Brexit, saying his administration agreed to NI Protocol the despite knowing it was unworkable.
“That must be the first agreement in history that was signed by people who decided it was useless in the first place,” Major told a Westminster committee on Tuesday.
The former Conservative prime minister did not name his successor but expressed astonishment at the acceptance of the protocol, which Johnson used to promote an “oven-ready” Brexit deal in the 2019 election.
He said Britain’s exit from the EU was a “colossal mistake” that had left the UK outside the world’s main three power blocs. “There is America, there is China and there is the European Union. We should be in Europe.”
The blunder was worsened by the agreement to impose checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain, he said.
“The protocol is a mess. It was very poorly negotiated,” Major told the Northern Ireland committee. “I think some of the promises made after the protocol that there would be no checks on trade from Britain and Northern Ireland, how those promises came to be made I cannot imagine because they were patently wrong. The protocol needs changing. I am baffled as to how we could have reached a situation where that protocol was accepted.”
Major, who was prime minister from 1990 to 1997, criticised Johnson’s administration for signing the protocol with the EU apparently on the basis that it would be later reformed. He also criticised Johnson and his successor, Liz Truss, for their threats to override the Brexit agreement.
“Even if the protocol bill was wrong that does seem to be a strange way to proceed because that sort of behaviour is pretty unwise. We, the British, would not respond to threats of that sort. Why do we think that the European Union would?”
Major was appearing as a witness at a committee hearing on the effectiveness of the institutions of the 1998 Good Friday agreement. The Democratic Unionist party (DUP) has collapsed power-sharing in Northern Ireland in a protest against the protocol, leaving the Stormont executive and assembly mothballed. The party says the protocol damages the region’s economy and its place in the UK.
We’re hearing from former Prime Minister, Sir John Major.
📺Watch live here: parliamentlive.tv/event/index/22…
https://twitter.com/CommonsNIAC/status/1622914358056570886?t=sjGlj-WQf7dBVpvIPyHytA&s=09
Major said all sides: London, Dublin, Brussels and parties in Northern Ireland, would have to compromise. “A statesmanlike response would be to recognise that nobody is going to get everything they wish, but to accept compromise in the interest of returning democratic government to Northern Ireland. That will not be easy for anyone.”
He said it seemed Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street team was making progress in talks with the EU. In a tacit rebuke to the DUP – and possibly also an appeal to Sunak to face down Tory Brexit hardliners – Major counselled compromise. “Statesmen who do that will succeed. Politicians who keep shouting slogans to their most extreme supporters will not.”
Major lauded the contribution of his Irish counterparts, Albert Reynolds and John Bruton, as well as Northern Ireland party leaders, clerics, civil servants, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair in paving the Good Friday agreement. “This is a settlement that has many parents. No one can claim full paternity.”
He expressed concern that poverty in Northern Ireland was undermining peace and reconciliation. “Economic hardship is a divisive force.”
With many thanks to: The Guardian @TheGuardian and Rory Carroll (Ireland Correspondent)
@roryrorycarroll72 for the original story.
Follow this link to to find out more on this story: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/07/boris-johnson-agreed-brexit-protocol-knowing-it-was-mess-says-john-major#Echobox=1675785051
Time to enact the St. Andrews Agreement which is to enact the GFA agreement.
French minister calls British plans to ditch parts of NI protocol “worrying”
France’s Europe minister Clement Beaune said on Tuesday the United Kingdom should respect its Brexit agreement with the European Union and described as worrying initiatives by London to ditch parts of the Northern Ireland protocol. “Everyone should respect their word and their signature. You can’t instrumentalise for whatever reason such serious and important matters,” Beaune said. The […]
French minister calls British plans to ditch parts of NI protocol “worrying”
Council Estate Media
BREXIT and the DUP has guaranteed there is no path back to the previous NI status quo before Brexit
As with so many Brexit problems it is always someone else’s fault. In the case of the North of Ireland, blame lies not with those such as David Frost, Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, who signed the deal, but with Remainer opponents who “forced” them into it.
This is the justification for continued intransigence in the dispute over the NI protocol, through which Frost and Johnson eroded the province’s constitutional integrity within the UK to maximise the Brexit freedoms for the British mainland. Outfoxed by Dublin and outgunned by the EU, they agreed that the North of Ireland would become a discrete EU jurisdiction with a Brexit Sea Border in the Irish Sea.
Tories, and NI’s unionist parties, have been trying to rewrite the deal ever since — aided by the EU’s overly zealous implementation of border checks on goods from Britain. The row has resulted in political stasis within the North of Ireland and the collapse of its power-sharing executive in Stormont. Relations were further poisoned when Johnson unveiled legislation unilaterally abrogating the Good Friday Agreement (GFA)
Suddenly, there is optimism that under Rishi Sunak a reset of relations might allow a new settlement. The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, and Chris Heaton-Harris, NI Secretary of State, are working with Maroš Šefčovič’s team at the European Commission to find areas for agreement. Common ground on relaxing the border checks is close, though this resolves only some trade issues. Leo Varadkar, the Irish premier, admits all sides “made mistakes” and has suggested shelving other planned rules. A data-sharing deal has raised hopes of “express lanes” for goods intended only for the North of Ireland, to remove the checks that deter mainland firms from selling there.
Sadly, this is the easy part. Initial worries have hardened into sovereignty arguments and led the Democratic Unionist party, cheered on by Brexit hardliners, to boycott, and so bring down the Stormont executive. Placing the North of Ireland within the EU’s single market for goods left it in Brussels’ regulatory orbit with the European Court of Justice as ultimate arbiter of issues covering VAT, trade and state aid. This pass was sold by the Brexiters.
Here lies the deeper problem: that egg cannot be unscrambled. The situation can be improved and some oversight scaled back. But there is no viable outcome under which the EU surrenders all jurisdiction. The North of Ireland will not fully regain its previous status.
So the challenge is to find enough of a fudge to break the logjam, one where the UK accepts the reality but the EU agrees to use its power lightly. Multiple ideas are advanced. There is talk of restricting the ECJ’s trade remit to goods not in the express lane. Better still would be the creation of a trade arbitration panel to settle disputes, reducing the ECJ’s status as final word. This would not resolve all issues. But without concessions Sunak will face enormous and possibly fatal internal opposition from the faction in his party that already distrusts him. So there are limits to what he can sell. This is why the EU needs to help him.
Brussels might be tempted simply to deliver the trade improvements and then wait for the possibility of a more amenable Labour government. But the Ukraine crisis has highlighted the need for European unity, which cannot wait for up to two years. The conditions for agreement are here. The UK and Ireland want a deal, Brussels sees Sunak as more reliable than his predecessors and the US is pressing for a way through.
This could be a defining issue for Sunak. Standing up to his ultras to drive through a deal that improves life for the people in the North of Ireland would show him to be a politically brave problem-solver. There are other electoral benefits. He knows voters are fed up with Brexit wrangles and want him focused on other issues.
The alternative to helping Sunak may be fresh confrontation. The legislation breaching the agreement may be in parliamentary limbo but it need not stay there.
Nor can Stormont be left idle indefinitely — not least when there are pressing economic problems to tackle. The DUP’s political misjudgments on Brexit have been epic and their intransigence legendary, but an effort to mollify them must be made. This year will be the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Joe Biden may even fly in from the US for the ceremonies. But they will feel rather hollow if the executive at the centre of that deal is still shuttered.
While Sunak must resist his hardliners, he cannot be expected to commit political suicide. He needs a solution that can credibly be presented as restoring some balance on sovereignty.
It may be that no deal can satisfy his purists or persuade the DUP back into government: to compromise would be to acknowledge a reality that Brexiters cannot accept, that the North of Ireland’s previous status is irrevocably altered. NI can never go back to the way it was before the DUP pushed NI into Brexit. Mechanisms may change but tax, state aid and sovereignty issues will still bubble up, especially if the Tories do increase regulatory divergence.
So three conditions are needed. Sunak needs the gumption to drive home a deal. Brussels must help him enough to make it worth the pain and the ultras and unionists need to accept the reality to which they were the midwives. The last may be a forlorn hope, but only once they accept there is no return to the old status quo will there be hope for a deal everyone can swallow. The DUP has guaranteed there is no path back to the previous NI status quo before Brexit.
With many thanks to the:https://www.ft.com and robert.shrimsley@ft.com for the original story.
Follow this link to to find out more on this story: There is no path back to a pre-Brexit Northern Ireland: https://www.ft.com/content/f2e5a5f4-38b8-44ab-8230-ba28c5971ba4
All Eight DUP MP’s Voted For The Border and Nationality Bill – Leading The Way To The Electronic Travel Authorisation Scheme (ETA) – Which Threatens Our Health Service Provision and Tourism in the North Warns Irish Government.
UK’S CROSS-BORDER TRAVEL PLAN ‘HIGHLY PROBLEMATIC’
CROSS-BORDER services face disruption following the planned introduction of a new travel document by the Conservative and Unionist Party
Non-Irish citizens will need to apply under the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) scheme before being allowed to travel to the North of Ireland. But the planned roll-out of the scheme this year has attracted heavy criticism from a broad spectrum of organisations, from human rights groups to businesses, particularly in the tourism sector.
Now the Dublin government has warned that the ETA “threatens the fluid nature of movement on the Island of Ireland and north-south cooperation including tourism and cross-border service provision”.
“The UK’s plans to establish an ETA-type Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) scheme that would apply to non-Irish residents of Ireland and tourists who wish to travel from south to north are highly problematic,” the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a strongly worded statement.
“The impact on tourism in the North of Ireland, for example, could be very significant as many tourists arrive in the North of Ireland via this jurisdiction. The NI Tourism Alliance and Tourism Ireland have articulated the risks very clearly.”
The Home Office plans to roll out the ETA over the course of this year with full implementation by its end. On Tuesday night London played down the impact of the ETA on cross-border travel and on communities in the region. Officials claimed it will not be “onerous or burdensome”.
The Home Office also said: “There are – and will continue to to be – no routine immigration controls whatever on the Ireland-NI land border, or on journeys within the Common Travel Area.”
It comes as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s latest comments on the post-Brexit protocol are being viewed positively in London. Downing Street, welcoming what it believes is a shift in tone from Dublin, said it had “always felt it was possible to enact the protocol in a way that was flexible”.
READ MORE:
◾Who were the government ministers from *orthern Ireland who voted along with the Tory Party for the Border and Nationality Bill? That ‘could cost the north’s tourism sector up £160m’? http://seachranaidhe-irishandproud.blogspot.com/2022/04/who-were-government-ministers-from.html?m=1
Mr Varadkar, who became taoiseach last month for the second time, recognised that the protocol had made unionists feel separated from the UK and said the EU was “willing to show flexibility and to make compromises”.
The Home Office plans full implementation of ETA by the end of this year. It applies to all citizens of countries that do not need a visa to enter the UK. The European Union is introducing its own ETIAS (European Travel Information and Authorisation System) visa waiver document in November but it applies only in the Schengen travel area, not Ireland. While not all details have yet been worked out, the ETA is likely to be valid for two years once successfully applied for. A government spokesperson added: “Those arriving in the UK, including NI, will need to continue to enter in line with the UK’s immigration framework, and follow Electronic Travel Authorisation rules when introduced.
John McGrillen, chief executive of Tourism NI, said in an interview last week: “There’s a little bit of a nonsense.”On the one hand the government are saying you’re required to have it but on the other hand they’re saying no-one will be checking to find out if you have one or not.”
Mr McGrillen, believes tourism will suffer despite assurances from London that they are working “to mitigate concerns”. “If you think of an agent who has been selling Cork and Kerry for decades, and we’ve only started to convince these people to start to sell the North of Ireland, the risk is that when they’re talking to a client they might suggest to them, ‘well, you can save yourself that hassle by just staying south of the border’, he said.
“That’s one of the key risks.”
Transport companies are going to be expected to check and confirm a traveller has the right documentation prior to travel and face penalties for failing to do so, according to the Home Office’s own published documents. The fine could be up to £2,000 per person, the NI Affairs committee heard last year.
The Home Office did not immediately comment on the amount. While the emphasis in the legislation passed last year was on airlines and ferry companies, the onus could land on train and bus firms, tour operators and even taxi companies.
Translink on Tuesday night declined to comment on the potential impact. In its statement, the Department of Foreign Affairs, now led by former taoiseach Micheál Martin, said: “It is welcome that in recent months the Home Office and the NIO have articulated an increased awareness of the complexities such a scheme presents in the context of the North of Ireland and are engaging with us on this matter.
“We will continue to press for exemptions to the UK’s ETA scheme.”
With many thanks thanks to the: Irish News and John Breslin for the original story. Follow these links to find out more on this story:
‼️New rules to apply for non-Irish or British nationals crossing the Irish #border from mid-2023
http://seachranaidhe-irishandproud.blogspot.com/2022/07/new-rules-to-apply-for-non-irish-or.html?m=1
Rebordering NI after Brexit: Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) https://dcubrexitinstitute.eu/2022/06/rebordering-northern-ireland-after-brexit-electronic-travel-authorisation/?s=09
Who were the government ministers from *orthern Ireland who voted along with the Tory Party for the Border and Nationality Bill? That ‘could cost the north’s tourism sector up £160m’? http://seachranaidhe-irishandproud.blogspot.com/2022/04/who-were-government-ministers-from.html?m=1
This is the story of Tory MP Michelle Mone and that £29m
Strap in, we’re going on a ride from Westminster to the Isle of Man.
Praise for Tory MP who put the DUP in its place over lack of energy price cap in NI
How surprising, actually to be able to praise a Conservative member of Parliament for pointing out the facts of life to other politicians who have harmed the people! Energy is a devolved responsibility in Northern Ireland, and the reason people there don’t have the safety of a cap on the price of energy per unit is…
Praise for Tory MP who put the DUP in its place over lack of energy price cap in NI
seachranaidhe1 
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